Heartstorm
by Nightheart
Summary: Trapped in a cave together during a sandstorm in Hueco Mundo, will this afford the pportunity for two star-crossed lovers to realize thier feelings for one another?
1. Storm Rising

**A two=parter for back to school. I hope you all enjoy it.

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He was upset, she could sense it. He had a sort of agitated restlessness to him, an inability to keep still or quiet... and his broken pacing was starting to drive her a little crazy.

"Will you just calm down already," she grumbled. "I'm fine... see?"

She once again pulled back the side of her robe to show him the fully healed scar that the not-Kaien arrancar had given her. The healer, Hanatarou Yamada had done a thorough job of fixing her up, though Renji had about flipped out the first time he'd caught sight of it (he robe had slipped aside when they'd ducked down to avoid a volley from a group of exequias, count on Renji to concentrate on her even right in the middle of a fight that might get them both killed).

In reply, Renji just scowled and paced over to the other end of the little cavelet they'd found. Outside the wind continued to howl and scream, turning the already dark sky of Hueco Mundo black as ink with its sand-bearing storm wind. They had nearly gotten caught in a sandstorm of all things. Renji had just managed to scent this cave and flash them over to it to hide in, after he had cleared it of its Hollow inhabitants first of course, before the true power of the storm struck and trapped them inside. There was no telling how long they were going to be there.

Renji went back out to the entrance of the cave and watched the storm continue on unabated for a long moment, then huffed in annoyance. Rukia tried not to glare at him and instead added another stick to the fire. They had a whole dead tree to burn, Renji had uprooted it from its position nearby and had reduced it to kindling with Zabimaru before the storm had gotten very big. That was good, because the night air of the desert was actually quite cold, even with their travel mantels to keep out the sand.

"It's not going to stop just by you staring at it," she informed him.

He plunked down in front of the fire across from her for the fourth time, and Rukia was sure it wouldn't be long before he started pacing restlessly again. He was like a caged beast.

"How's yer leg?" he asked her.

She'd suffered an injury to it during the fight and Renji had carried her out and away when everyone had scattered at the end of the fight.

"A little tender, but fine," she replied. "I'm pretty sure its only a minor sprain."

::_Of course it would only be a minor sprain with **you **around_,:: she grumbled to herself.

She was a warrior too! But every time it looked like she was in the _least _little bit of danger, there he was, getting in the way of her fight! She wouldn't be surprised if her older brother had sent him along just to make sure nothing happened to her. Of course, knowing Renji, if there was a good fight involved, he wouldn't have needed to be asked twice. He'd always been like that though, putting himself between her and all harm.

"Good," he said more to fill the silence than anything else.

"How long do you think the storm will last?" she asked him next.

"Dunno," he replied. "Could be a few hours, could be all day. I used ta run red-zone missions in desert areas when I was climbin' ranks in Eleventh, had sumthin' like this happen ta me once or twice. We'll be here a while, until that storm blows itself out."

"Oh," Rukia said.

Until Las Noches, she'd never once gotten anywhere _near _a red-zone mission. She'd only _just _been allowed out to visit the mortal world, and the asignment had been a nice, cushy, supposedly safe city-reaping mission. Red-zone missions were the most dangerous missions a Soul Reaper could take on, the ones in active battle zones, where the Hollows were big and scary and viscious as hell. She'd heard the stories. Renji had run a lot of them, that she knew from listening around.

"So what did you do then, to pass the time until the storm passed?" she asked curiously.

Renji looked at her over the flames and said

"I was usually in sheilded barracks at the base so we all did what we usually did ta pass the time..."

Renji's grin was a little crooked.

"Played music, drank, gambled, boasted... womanized with the other Reapers. Whatever."

Rukia felt a small pang of annoyance at that last. Yes, she'd heard _that _little detail about red-zone missions too. Some of the women reapers who had been on those kinds of missions had been quite frank about the way that being in situations that put your afterlife at risk gave you certain physical imperatives with urgency.

"I didn't know you played," she decided to say instead. "My brother plays the koto."

He played it very elegantly and with a fine form, but Rukia's tastes seemed a little more plebeian and, though she feigned polite interest for his sake, she'd never really much cared for the classical instrument. Renji too, made a face.

"I play guitar," he replied. "Harmonica too, I guess. They're easy ta pick up, and pretty easy ta carry with ya, so learning them helped ta pass the time. How about you, I'd figure with all that other noble-type stuff they got ya learnin' you'd pick up an instrument too."

She had very small hands, so it limited what she could play easily.

"Fife," she replied, a little defensively.

"I'll have ta come over an' hear ya play sometime," was all Renji said.

"Same here," Rukia replied with a small smile.

The polite conversation died, tapering off into silence as they both listened for any sign of the storm outside abating.

"You sure you're warm enough?" Renji asked.

She getting a little tired of him asking. She was practically cocooned in a nest composed of her mantle his mantle and the fire, if she got any warmer she was going to start taking clothes off.

The naughty thought occurred to her that she should tell him so just to see what his reaction would be.

"Yes, I am quite warm," she said with exaggerated patience.

Really, what would he do if she told him she was freezing, offer her the shirt off his back?

::_Probably_,:: she thought dryly.

Lord knew that he had done it before. When they'd been traveling from Hangdog to the first district in order to take the test that would allow them to enter the Academy there had been more than one cold night where he had wrapped her up as best he could to keep her warm without regard to his own comfort.

"Are ya hungry?" he asked next.

"Even if I were you can't exactly go out into that storm to hunt idiot!" she snapped finally.

Honestly, they get away from Kuchiki and out into the howling wilderness for only a _day _and all those protective provider instincts of his just kick right back in with a vengeance.

"Uh, right," he said gruffly.

She caught the flicker of hurt that was quickly covered up by his glancing out at the entrance crack of the cave to gauge if the storm was letting up or not. She felt a small pang of guilt for snapping at him, she really hadn't meant to but she was having a hard time being cooped up with him in a small enclosed space with nothing to do or distract herself with. It had only been a day, maybe two, since she'd come very, _very _close to dying herself. Even as she had resigned herself to her death, content with the knowledge that she had redeemed herself and her former Lieutenant (who would no longer sleep restlessly in his grave with a small portion of his spirit trapped within a creature that was anathema to him) there had been another part of her that had railed and fought desperately against the heavy darkness seeping in around her mind and pulling her under into its comforting embrace. It had been in that moment, on the very edge between life and death, that she had come to realize what truly mattered in life. The connections you shared with the people you loved. That was what it was all about.

Rukia looked across the fire at the man who had once been the boy she'd grown up with, who had been the first to take her in and make her part of a family. Sure, it had been a rough sort of family made out of necessity, but that did not mean they had not all loved each other any less. She had grieved deeply when each of them had died, grieved until it felt like there were no tears left, and though it all he had comforted her, stayed strong for her, provided for her as best he could. Renji had always shared with her unstintingly anything he had; blankets, food, shelter, water, even when the only thing he had was the warmth of his skin to ward off the bitter chill. She often wondered what she had done to deserve such a good friend.

"It's just that-" Renji cut himself off and went back to moving about restlessly.

She could sense his emotional distress from there, his reiatsu flared and popped and flickered erratically, as unable to keep still as the man himself.

::_I wonder what's eating him_?:: she thought to herself.

That he was upset was obvious, but she wasn't sure why. She could always try to ask, but Renji was a typical Rukongai male; he'd just bluster about it and try to deny that there was anything wrong if he thought that an honest answer might make him expose weakness.

"It's just _what_, Renji?" she asked in the silence.

She tried making her tone gentle instead of demanding like she wanted to, she'd learned that demanding just made him clam up faster, if she was gentle and coaxing with him, sometimes she'd manage to wriggle a few honest answers out of him before he put that damned shield of manly pride up again.

"I... You... Fergit it," he grumbled, sinking his chin into his hands.

She supressed her first instinct to pick a fight and bicker with him like usual, granted she sometimes felt better after relieving stress by a good argument or beating him into submission, but there was a strangely haunted quality around his eyes now. She'd seen that look once or twice before, and it had been right after they'd lost their family. Rukia had been wrapped up in her own grief at the time, and he'd always been the one to stay strong and take care of things , allowing her the luxury of indulging her greif. He never talked about it, and it was such a painful subject that she never brought it up, but she'd seen him once or twice, in a rare unguarded moment, and she knew that whatever terrible thing had happened when her friends had died (he never let her look) he carried it with him.

It bothered her now to think that the one person in the world she had always felt had known her best, and that she had known better than anyone else ever could, had things that he hid from her. If he was hiding this then what else was he hiding? Was he as honest an up-front as he had always seemed to be? If anyone had asked her that question before her execution she would have said yes without hesitation, but the betrayal of three well-respected captains had turned the whole world on its side and cast shadows of doubt over everything, suddenly she needed to know. She needed to know what was in there, needed to know if it was going to hurt her or not. That fight with the not-Kaien arrancar-espada thing had torn open old wound she thought had healed, and while she had been granted a measure of inner peace because of it, and had found some answers that she hadn't known she'd needed, the manipulative tactics that it had used on her and her response to them had raised some others.

"I'm not going to forget it Renji," Rukia said clearly.

She had decided on what her course of action was going to be.

::_We're stuck here alone in this cave together. He can't go anywhere. If there were anyone else in this place with us my rank would be a barrier between us and he could rightly plead inpropriety but there isn't. He can't run away and I won't be denied_.::

She had him cornered.

::_So **that's** why he's pacing_,:: she realized, suddenly filled with a feeling of powerful malicious delight.

She had him cornered, he knew it, and he was afraid. Well, so he should be after avoiding her all those years and then just showing back up at the eleventh hour, bloodied, bruised and beaten from taking on her brother, a man who out classed him and out fought him by over a century's worth of experience. Anyone else with any sense at all (save the other idiot) would have backed the hell down and thought of another way. Not Renji though, not only does he face down her brother, but also Aizen. Rukia still recalled the way her heart hammered in her chest when he held her tucked against his side, sword placed in front of him defensively and flat-out refused to give him what he demanded.

"Since we're essentially stuck here, I think it's time we cleared up a few things between us."

She wanted answers. She had already existed for decades on assumptions, but recent events had strongly suggested that the assumptions she had made (that this man had apparently been content to let bide) had been erroneous.

"I thinks it's time that you and I had a nice long chat," she continued. "And since we're not going anywhere, there's no-one to overhear and go carrying tales to that brother of mine, and there won't be any interruptions... we're going to have our discussion, one way or another."

She was a little gratified to see his face pale with that that same look he got when he got caught with his hand stuck in the merchant's purse. That look that said "busted" all over his face. He knew he was in for it. She watched, slightly amused as Renji swallowed nervously and looked frantically toward the cave opening.

"Hey look, I think the storm's letting up," he tried.

"Freeze," she commanded... because he _would _try to walk out into a storm.

"Are you sure you're not hungry, or thirsty," he tried again, clearly frantically trying to steer the conversation anywhere else.

"I'm fine!" she snapped. "Stop trying to change the subject."

He got up and paced frantically, like a tiger in a cage.

"And sit down! You're driving my crazy with all of that pacing!" she snapped again, irritated.

"I'll pace how I want, when I want to," he snapped back, clearly agitated. "It's yer fault anyway!"

"What?" Rukia said, irritation sparking up in her.

::_Really! This man!_::

It was a wonder that either of them had survived to adulthood without killing each other after pushing one another's buttons one too many times. She wasn't alone with him for twenty minutes and she already wanted to strangle him.

"How is any of this my fault?" she demanded. "You're the dumb one!"

"_I'm_ dumb? I'm not the one who-"

Renji looked pained again and choked off what he was going to say. He stared at her intensely for a good long minute, that powerful, unpredictable reiatsu of his wrapping around her, stroking gently with the feel of heated silk against her skin. His eyes traced over her face like he'd never seen her before...

::_Or is that, that he'd never see me again_?:: she wondered.

Then it hit her. The fight with that not-Kaien arrancar had nearly killed her. Rukia had been within an inch of starting on the road to her next life when she'd been brought back from the brink by her plucky young healer friend. But if the healer and her brother hadn't been there, Renji would not have made it in time to save her. Just like he hadn't been able to save their friends from their own fates in Rukongai. Just like he hadn't been able to protect her from Aizen, though he had tried.

"Renji," she said quietly, her tone kept low and unthreatening. "Are you so upset because you felt my reiatsu go out? You thought I was dead?"

Renji looked down and to the side, unable to meet her gaze as he tried to keep his face from betraying his emotions. He could see the look of repressed pain, but what surprised her was its depth; she'd rarely seen a look of such anguish on anyone's face before. It was strange and disconcerting that she would see it on _his _face; it wasn't that she felt Renji incapable of feeling, he'd always been hot-temptered and a little moody at times, what surprised her was the fact that had seemed to feel so strongly about her. His reiatsu retreated a little but she could hear the tremor in his breathing. He was shaking and trying not to show it.

"Look at me," she said softly, reaching one of her small hands up to his cheek to gently turn his face toward her.

That simple motion seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back because before she'd even seen him move, she was engulfed in his embrace. He was on his knees before her, arms wrapped tight around her waist pressing her to his solid wall of a chest. His head was buried in the crook of her neck.

Renji had never been much for open displays of emotion, a light shoulder-squeeze or a punch on the arm or on a rare occasion, a one-armed hug were usually the extent of his appropriately manly displays of affection. Unless of course, one counted the times that they had slept curled up for warmth under a collection of ragged blankets in winter. On lonely nights in the academy and even lonelier nights later on in the Kuchiki household she recalled the way he had slept wrapped around her. But barring that, she had only been embraced by him like this once, on one other occasion. It had been on the night they had lost their last friend in an epidemic of the Riverfront Ravage. The medicine he'd managed to steal hadn't worked and they'd sat a lonely vigil as he'd slipped off. When he'd reached down to close Haru's eyes after it, he'd suddenly turned and held her close, as if to assure himself that she was still alive. She hadn't known what to do then, so she'd just stood there.

"I'm right here," Rukia said in the present, gently putting her arms around him this time. "I'm okay."

"You gave up," he accused her. "You never give up, and you... you did. _Why_?"

There was an entire universe of hurt and confusion in that one word. Of course, he was confused, Renji would be confused because he really couldn't understand it. He didn't know what it was like to go through life everyday wanting the affection and approval of someone, trying to be perfect just so they'd look your way. He didn't know what it was like to pour time, and strength and energy into trying to gain even a single shred of warmth and approval. Renji had always been so strong, so self-reliant, he'd never needed anyone, not even her. After all, hadn't he so easily given her up at the first opportunity? He couldn't understand what it was like, feeling doubt and insecurity and unworthiness eat away at him everyday.

"You... Renji, you wouldn't understand," she said softly.

"I wouldn't understand what? What wouldn't I understand?" he demanded, but there was a strangely desperate pleading note to his voice.

"You're so strong, and brave, you wouldn't understand what it's like trying to live every day feeling unworthy of everything."

She hadn't meant to admit it out loud, this was the _last _confession she had ever wanted to say to him. He was just going to probably poke her in the chest or flick her foehead or thwack the side of her head lightly and tell he she was being an idiot.

"Who says you're unworthy?" he growled, pulling back to look at her fiercely. "Point him out ta me, I'll set 'im straight."

He looked as ready as ever to go and pick a fight with some random stranger for some imagined slight to her. He really hadn't changed at all.

"You idiot," she murmured, partly in despair.

"Yeah, yer right," he sighed, sounding defeated.

He got up and sat down again a few paces away from her on the other end of the fire. He looked sad and a little defeated, his expression resigned.

Rukia blinked, taken aback. Had Renji just _agreed _with her? Not only that, but over the fact that he was an idiot?

"I don't get it," he said sounding sad. "You gave up on yerself then, but me an' the brat managed ta stuff some fight back into ya. Why in the world would you give up on yerself again?"

He paused for a bit and when he asked his next question, his tone was strangely hesitant and guarded.

"That man still mean that much to ya? You'd give up yer life because he asks?"

He'd completely missed the point, as usual.

"It wasn't about Kaien-dono," she replied irritated at him. "Well, I guess it was, but not really. I mean... well, what if it had been you? Back then. What if you had been asked to take the life of someone you admired and respected and... and _liked _probably a little more than you should."

Renji frowned, the look on his face a little angry and yet unfathomable.

"I'da done it," Renji said plainly.

::_Of course you would_,:: she thought with an inner eye roll.

Maybe it was a guy thing. She didn't see how ending someones life, or helping them to end their own was supposed to do anyone any good. Rukia had no real frame of reference for assisted suicide; in her book, she had killed him. Even if he had asked her to, it was murder. She had cared for him and she had still killed him, and she carried that horrible guilt with her from that day to this day. She tried something else.

"What if... what if it had been me? What if someone told you that the only way to save me had been to kill me, and you did and then you were expected to live every day afterward like there was nothing wrong with that?" she had tears springing to her eyes, willing him to understand how she felt. "How would you feel about that?"

Renji looked at her for a long, long moment, his expression strangely unreadable. There was a deep, fathomless quality to his rose-brown eyes, something he kept hidden away in their depths unrevealed.

"I... I don't think... I don't think it's exactly the same thing, Rukia," he said quietly.

She glared in frustration. They had been friends since forever, there wasn't anyone else Rukia could trust to understand this. Even her wonderful captain, who was so wise and supportive in every other instance, still didn't understand this. Her brother prated at her about duty and honor and redemption and all that other crap. She needed just one person in her world to understand the kind of burden she felt. Ichigo might, but he was mortal.

"_How _is it different?" she snapped.

"Even if he was someone you liked, he was still your superior officer and someone you respected as well."

"Well Mister Vice-Captain," she growled. "Are you saying you don't respect me?"

"I'm saying the analogy doesn't work," he growled back.

Rukia got that nagging feeling again that there was some part of this conversation that was being left out.

::_He's hiding something from me, and I want to know what it is_,:: she thought.

She'd sort of forgotten her original objective of cross-examining him when Kaien had been brought into the discussion.

"Why doesn't it work?" she demanded next. "Explain it to me. Why?"

"Rukia," he said, his expression looked closed-off and pained. "Don't ask me that."

"Don't ask you what?" she replied demandingly, this time it was she who got up and paced.

"Don't ask you why, after not saying barely five words to me in as many decades, you suddenly want to burst back into my life and pretend to be my friend again?"

"I'm not pretending, how can you say that?"

She continued as if she hadn't heard him, still pacing angrily.

"Don't ask you why you never spoke to me, or looked at me, in public? Don't ask you why you always bowed properly, like we were strangers? Don't ask you why... why..."

Tears flowed down her face in the sudden stillness caused by her standing right in front of him as he knelt on the ground, looking down as he looked up at her, their places a curious reversal of that day as she finally asked the very question that had troubled her for fifty years.

"Don't ask you why it was so _damn _easy for you to just give me away like an unwanted pet?"

When she was feeling particularly petty and resentful towards him for giving her up she had sometimes imagined a scenario like this, where he was on his knees at her feet, clutching her robes and begging for her forgiveness. Renji never begged. He'd steal, he'd fight, he'd trick and he'd connive but he'd never beg. His eyes pleaded with her now.

"Rukia," he said, his tone was so soft and compelling and strangely intimate.

Of its own accord her heart sped up. She had never seen him so vulnerable before.

"Are you sure you want to know the answers?" he asked next. "Because once you know, you can't go back to ignorance. It'll change things. Once you know, things won't ever be the same."

"They haven't been the same for a long time now," she said quietly. "And even if it will change something, I think I deserve to hear the truth from you Renji."

"As you wish," he said, but it didn't sound resigned at all.

In fact, now that she had cornered him he looked strangely elated and determined. He stood up, towering over her for a moment and took her hand then moved over to the warm little nest he'd made for her with their mantles next to the fire. He sat down and tugged her down beside him, building up the fire a bit, then he turned to face her, making himself comfortable. She tried to look as encouraging as possible, because she was finally getting what she wanted out of him and without having to pull it out, inch by excruciating inch, argument by argument, trying to sift through endless rounds of bicker and male-pigheaded bluster (that Renji did so well) for those few kernels of truth he might have let slip unintentionally. She wondered a bit at how easily he capitulated (_finally_!) but decided that she'd finally run him into the ground.

"Well...?" she said after a silence that stretched on too long for her taste.

"Gimme a minit!" he grumbled. "I'm tryin' ta think o' th' best way t' tell ya."

Their mutual street accent thickened when he got upset or nervous.

"Renji... Just tell me," she said softly, coaxingly.

She wasn't quite sure why but her heart was pounding. She hadn't felt like this in a very very long time, she'd almost forgotten what it was like. The concept of time as a number of years in a lifespan did not generally apply to Soul Reapers, many of them were centuries old, some of them even millenia old, but that did not mean that time passed any less slowly for them. Days were still days, years were still years, decades were still decades... the wait between when she asked him to tell her the truth and when he finally found his voice seemed interminable.

His hand lifted to cup her small cheek in the large, warm rough square of his palm. His face was unguarded, his eyes weren't hard or shuttered, his expression wasn't feirce or angry or carefully blank, in fact he seemed infused with an inner light. All of that light was focused on her.

"I love you," he said softly.

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**Originally this was all one long document but it was ten-thousand words so I split it up into two to make it easier to read and review.** **I hope you all enjoyed this one last little hoorah before we all settle in to our respective semesters or whatever. I had started this with the intention of making it a fic for Renji's birthday but... well, it took me longer than I had anticipated to finish it. The one I actually wound up writing onthe 14th sadly, featured Renji dying in an entirely honorable and beautiful way... uh, not what anyone want's on thier birthday. So, belated birthday present for him and I hope you all enjoy. The next chapter should be p tomorrow or Wednesday. Repost to edit.**


	2. Storm Breaking

"I love you."

There was no room in his serious tone for doubt or prevarication. This was a fact to him, as solid as the earth and unchanging as the stars. Which was good, because Rukia's world had certainly just turned on its side. Her mouth opened in shock, trying to form a question but... she couldn't even _think _straight. Her mind had blanked as she tried to frantically adjust her world view.

It couldn't be true... could it? No, surely not. Not Renji, he couldn't hide anything from anybody, and certainly not from _her _who had known him the longest. She would surely have noticed something... wouldn't she have?

She cast her mind back over all the little conversations they'd had as kids, especially as they got older, and in the academy, searching for something, anything that would confirm what he was saying. There had been some long looks he'd given her after saying something out of character, seeking glances, trying to gague her reactions maybe?

Maybe she herself had been complicit in Renji's ability to keep his secret. She might have turned a blind eye to any little hints he might have put out, maybe her ignorance was nothing but denial...

"I have loved you..." he smiled a little, softly. "Gods, I almost can't remember a time when I didn't. I wanted you ta have the best of everything. Anything I could give you."

Well, Renji had always give her the larger share of the water they stole and the better cuts of the food they hunted. He'd always said that it was because she was so scrawny that she clearly needed the nutrients more than he did (he who was forever outgrowing his clothes). He's always given her the thicker, warmer blanket, and had slept between her and the door in winter saying that she was so small the cold would go right through her.

"I was always going ta be a Soul Reaper, but after a while that dream changed a little too, or at least the reason behind it did. If I could gain even a little rank, I'd be able ta get ya nice things. A nice home ta live in an' pretty clothes ta wear. Something better than trash an' stolen loot anyway. So I did what I could ta prepare along the way when we went ta go take the tests for the Academy."

She remembered that trip, it had been a long one, traveling all the way from the outer districts to the inner ones. And now that she thought about it Renji had often gone off on his own, Rukia had assumed he was out looking for food, or scouting around for a place to sleep, but he'd been trying to push himself to improve his skills? She had a little bit along the way too, making spirit-globes and bragging at Renji about how much better hers was than his.

"I still don't really know how I got into the advanced class," he admitted. "I could barely read and write, and my skill at kido still sucks to this day."

Even then, untrained and un-manifested, Renji had been a natural with the blade. Powerful, fearless and aggressive. She had not seen an untrained, raw recruit that was as natural as he was with a sword until she'd sent Ichigo into battle.

"But we drifted apart in the academy," she protested.

:_Let's see you explain **that **one_!:: she thought not without a tiny twinge of vindictiveness.

"You were settling in and making friends, and getting to do everything first. If you were so much in love with me, why weren't you there? I was lonely."

"I know that now," Renji said sadly. "But I was still a kid back then. You hang around those brats all day every day, you must have seen it and noticed it for yourself! Geeze, when yer a brat that age an' ya like a girl, ya gotta give her shit ta prove you don't, helps a guy maintain his image."

She shook her head slowly at him in bewilderment.

"That," she said flatly. "Makes absolutely no sense."

"I never said it did," Renji replied, sounding a little frustrated. "But things _don't_ when yer that age!"

Rukia thought about that statement for a long moment, while Renji huffed to himself, and decided that, based on her observations and experiences (both recent and in the past) with adolescent males... he had a point.

"I was a _kid_, okay? I was just puffing up and strutting around, trying to show you I was the best. Even better than you, because... well, I didn't want you lookin' anywhere else."

A strange laugh of both relief and disbelief escaped her. Not that she didn't believe him about that last, she _did _hang around children that age on a daily basis in the mortal world, she had seen conclusive evidence to support his assertions for herself. Boys did things that were exceedingly foolish, many of them involving stupid stunts that might require her presence in a Soul Reaper capacity to send them on to Soul Society if they went wrong, all to catch the eye of some girl.

:_Boys are dumb, and Renji is such a male_!: she thought, shooting him a well-deserved reproving look for his idiocy.

"It wasn't like I _wanted _ta drift apart, it just happened," he protested. "Every time I got near you I got all tongue-tied and flustered and that made me get all, y'know, proud an' stuff."

:_And he had to puff himself up with bluster even more to cover up the panic_,: this she knew from watching other little boys in Ichigo's high school.

She supposed he could forgive him for acting his age in that instance, it wasn't like there hadn't been times when they hadn't gotten along too. There had been cherry-blossom viewing parties among the other students where they'd been able to enjoy each others company, and a tanabata festival before she had joined Kuchiki that had been particularly wonderful. It had been just the two of them that night, stretched out on a blanket underneath a sky full of stars with fireworks going off across the lake. She vividly remembered his warm, strong arms keeping away the slight chill. She'd wanted that night to last forever.

:_He could have made a move **then**_,: she grumbled to herself.

It wasn't like she would have turned him away, exactly. Maybe.

Rukia tried to recall what she had been like in those days and guiltily had to admit, in the light of being so much older and wiser, that maybe Renji was not the only one trying to act cool around someone they wanted to impress so that person wouldn't look anywhere else. She'd heard the bath-house talk among the other female students about their classmates, Renji, despite his low background, had been a fangirl favorite even then. That might have been part of the reason Rukia hadn't had any friends in her class, after the Incident in the mortal world with the Hollows and Captain Aizen, Renji, Kira and Momo had all had something of a celebrity status (at least for a while) and the other female students might have been jealous that he was always visiting with her and talking to her and not them.

"Well... then, um, what about that day? Why'd you tell me to go? You were congratulating me and saying I was going to get to eat fancy food and live the good life and... you didn't even _ask _me what I wanted! You all but threw me after them, like you couldn't get rid of me fast enough! And now you tell me you were in love with me when you did it? How the hell is _that_ love, you had to know we were gonna be separated! Why didn't you tell me not to go? Why didn't you fight to keep me?"

All the questions and misery and sorrow she'd been keeping bottled up all this time just came exploding out of her... and hit Renji like a blade though the gut to judge by his expression.

"You're so stupid..." she whispered, tearing up again.

"Rukia," he reached for her, but couldn't seem to decide quite where to touch and after a moments indecision, put his hand back down.

"Love ain't about gettin' what ya want. Not fer me it ain't. Love is about me making sure that the girl who means the whole world ta me has the very best life possible. I couldn't give you the kind of life that you could get with them. Even if I was Seated right out of the Academy it'd still be a few years until I worked myself up to a position to provide any sort of good life for you. How could I hold you back when you had someone already there offering you the moon. I couldn't give you that. And what's more, you were gonna have a family, I mean a real family! Not just something cobbled together out of necessity but, you know, somethin' solid. Something you could rely on."

Rukia looked at him for a long moment and had to restrain the urge to hit him. Then hit him again, and probably some more until that thick skull of his was dented enough for some common sense to able to sink its way in.

"You... dumbass," she said in amazement. "I already had something I could rely on. Well, up until _he _showed up I did."

"But you-"

"My honorable brother and the Kuchiki Clan have given me things I had never once imagined I would have, or even look for," she said, overriding his confusion. "Thanks to them I have a name, and a place in the world. My life and world has a structure and a definition that I often find comforting, even though I equally find it stifling. And you're right that a number of the previous worries that used to define our lives when we were kids like, where is my next meal coming from and where are we going to sleep tonight, are gone. This life I have has many things in it that are really wonderful, but at the same time I often wonder if it makes up for what I lost."

"Even after I gave you up, I still couldn't give up on you. I still wanted... I wanted you to have the best, but..._ I_ wanted to be what was best for you," he said honestly.

"What was best..."

"So I made a deal with Zabimaru, and after graduation, we trained."

Rukia stared at him for one long blank moment. She had kept track of him over the years, mostly by rumors going around the Seireitei among the squads. Her brother hadn't expressly forbidden contact between them, but he'd advised her to keep to her place so talking with him hadn't been much of an option really. But she'd kept tabs on him. She'd heard the rumors about how he'd torn through the ranks in Eleventh where the only thing that mattered there was the strength you could bring to the battlefield. She'd heard about his numerous decorations for valor during his missions, and she knew that Renji got assigned to all of the danger zone missions, the ones where the Hollows were all really vicious. She'd heard that the Third Seat, a warrior of renown, had taken him on as a protege.

...He had considered all of that _training_? The things he'd done could make a Soul Reapers career several times over, and Renji called it _practice_?

"If I was ever going to get to talk to you again with my head held up, I needed ta get rank, so I did," he smiled a little. "It happened a bit slower than I would have liked though. I'm a pretty good fighter, but ya don't get put in Eleventh if yer a wuss, so I had ta beat some guys who were really good and tough first. It was hard, an' it took longer than I wanted, but eventually I made it there."

Rukia had seen some of the hulking brutes that qualified as Seated officers in Eleventh. She wouldn't have taken any of them on without several prepped binding spells and Sode No Shiraiyuki shikaied and ready to fight. Some of them she wouldn't have even taken on _then_, at least not without a really, _really _good reason for doing so. Renji had done all of that, just so he could _talk _to her.

"But then I finally make lieutenant, make it to a place where it wouldn't be improper for me to talk to you again, and you go an' get yerself arrested and sentenced to death," Renji glared at her hotly. "You have _any _idea whatcha put me through, havin' ta drag you in and lock you up?"

She had assumed he hadn't cared at the time, even if he did come and visit her. His visits had usually devolved into bickering and shouting matches as she skillfully pushed his buttons and pissed him off. Renji had already seemed to be carrying a chip on his shoulder anyway. In light of this new information it was no wonder he'd been so foul tempered.

She recalled the optimistic way he'd tried to comfort her by saying that her brother would be sure to get her out of prison on a technicality or something, and Rukia had been forced to disabuse him of his notion. She had been puzzled at the time at the look of shock and dismay on his face.

::_Poor Renji_,:: Rukia thought with a twinge of sympathy. ::_He gives me up to someone he thinks is powerful enough to protect me, goes through hell just so he can talk to me again, then finds out that the man he handed me over to won't do his job_.::

"But you fought my own honorable brother," she prodded. "You had to have known he out-classes you."

"On a lot of levels," Renji agreed grumpily.

Rukia smiled.

"An' o' course I fought 'im," Renji said, as if no other course of action would have occurred to him. "He was gonna let you die over some stupid principle that don't even matter."

"Leaving my honorable brother out of this," she said, putting aside the matter for the moment. "You were in love with me all this time... and you never once thought to _tell _me about it?"

"O'course I wanted t' tell you about it!" he snapped back in reply. "But how could I? You were on a completely different level than I was. If I was ever gonna have _any _chance at a life with you, I had ta play by the rules."

Rukia thought about that statement for a moment. Any attempt at her would have been seen as an assault on her brother's pride; if Renji had improperly snuck around behind his back that would have been breaking the rules. If Renji had broken the rules, Byakuya Kuchiki wouldn't have thought twice about breaking _him_.

"You _still _could have told me," she grumbled.

"Oh yeah?" he challenged. "When? When would have been an appropriate time to let you know? When you were taken into the household? What, I was supposed to sneak in as a half-trained adolescent past all those ninja guards of his and slip you a note?"

"What about when we met at Soul Reaper Functions?" she suggested logically.

"Tried that," he said flatly. "You may not think that you're being watched over all the time, but you are."

"Are you suggesting that my honorable brother... has it in for you?"

"I'm sayin' he's not so stupid that he can't see what's up," Renji replied a little sardonically.

"But he took you in personally as his own lieutenant," Rukia said confusedly.

"Keep yer sisters close and their suitors even closer," Renji misquoted with a smile.

That got a giggle out of her.

"I was advised that if I wanted ta do right by you, I should stay outta yer way until I could approach you _properly_. I didn't want ta do anything that was gonna hurt ya... looks like I managed to screw that one up," he said glumly. "Maybe if I'da been there like I wanted to, instead o' followin' the rules hopin' fer a someday, you wouldn't have been so eager ta send yer powers to a mortal and take up with him."

Rukia narrowed her eyes at Renji and studied him for a long moment. What exactly did he mean by "take up" with him? Had he _really _loved her all this time?

"What's done is done I guess," Renji sighed. "So, how're you holdin' up?"

He just dumps all this on her and then wants to know how she feels about it? She still didn't have her feet properly under her again and he wants to know...

::_I think I want to hit him_,:: she thought calmly.

How _dare _he hide something this important from her for so long! She'd thought he hadn't cared! And how _dare _he just make decisions _for _her about what was best?

He must've seen something in her eyes or on her face because he promptly tried to back up and get away.

"Hey, hey, now Rukia. I wasn't tryin' ta make you upset, you were the one who wanted ta know!"

"Idiot!" she said as a battle cry.

She sprang at him, pouncing on him like a cat and promptly bound his wrists to the stone floor of the cave with a bakudo. She secured his legs next while he tried to thrash around.

"Hey! Lemme up dammit!" he howled, trying to get loose.

Rukia stood and looked down at him from on high, completely at her mercy.

"Let's get one thing straight," she growled at him, pointing a finger down at his nose. "Stop making stupid decisions, even if they are for all the right reasons!"

After all, she couldn't really bring herself to be completely mad at him. He may have been a typical dumb male (dumber than most) and avoided her for a long time out of some misguided sense of chivalry (and since when did Renji have chivalry?) but all the decisions he had made had been made with her well-being and happiness at its heart. He was stupid and there was just no getting around that, but he could also be very sweet. She'd just have to cure him of his annoying habit of always trying to protect her and make decisions for her. Trying to provide for her and give her a good life was one thing, Renji had always done that and she didn't think there was any changing that about him, but how in the world could he be so dense as not to see that there was a vast difference between material wealth and quality of life. They could have been married with a whole tribe of screaming brats running around by now!

"Rukia!" he snapped, still trying to free himself.

She let him wriggle. After all, she had him securely on the hook and had for years (even if she hadn't known it), there was no point in not having fun with it and watching him dangle.

"Ye-e-e-es," she said with her wide, drawn out "fuku-taicho-dono~" smile.

"How did I ever fall for such a cruel and heartless woman?" he demanded of the universe at large.

Now that was uncalled for. What, just because she now had him utterly at her mercy, heart in his hands in obeisance at her feet, thrown over in worship of her?

"You should have known that this wasn't going to be easy," Rukia said in a mock-sympathy tone.

Then she got down to business.

"You really love me?" she asked, trying not to let that sliver of insecurity slip out into her voice.

"Yeah. Always have, always will. Even when you're a brat, like you are now," Renji said sincerely, smiling up at her.

"You only sent me away because you thought I deserved better than what you could give?"

"Yes. I've never regretted _anything _in my whole life more than I did forcing myself to let you go and not chase after you."

"And you fought all the Seated Officers in Eleventh and went out to fight tough battles and get stronger so you could gain rank and talk to me?" She knelt down next to him.

"Yes. Well, mostly. I have to get stronger than him. I can only take you back that way. You deserve the best, and I want to be that best."

"You're an idiot," she told him, tears in her eyes.

"I thought we covered that already," Renji said, sounding exasperated. "Are you gonna let me up?"

"Nope," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You can stay there. Consider it penance for decades of idiocy."

Renji raised a tattoed brow, nonplussed, at her. Suddenly he gave a popping flare of his now-immense lieutenant-class reiatsu and the level one bonds she'd entrapped him with to hold him in place dissolved like sugar in hot water. She was abruptly wrapped in his arms again as he sat up suddenly and secured her to where she was the one who couldn't move. His voice was low in her ear, making her shiver as he said

"I should have known better than to trust that you wouldn't push the limit Rukia. I'd almost managed to forget that when you get an advantage over someone, you have no concept of mercy. Can you blame me for being so cautious?"

His reiatsu wrapped around them both, warm and soft, currents flowing and caressing here and there like unexpected currents in a bath. He never _had _had very much control over it. She felt warm and safe in a way she hadn't for years. She relaxed into the embrace, knowledge of his feelings for her speaking to her on an instinctive level of comfort and security.

"Aren't you going to give me an answer?" he asked her.

"I never heard you ask a question," she replied.

Her voice sounded faint and vaguely dreamy in her ears but that was alright, she felt wonderful.

"I love you with everything I am, is there a chance for me?" he asked.

She could feel his arms tremble around her, his eyes searched hers desperately, expression completely vulnerable. It still amazed her a little bit, because vulnerable and Renji were just two words that didn't fit in the same sentence together, or even the same book.

"I should make you wait," she said, unable to resist the urge to torment him a little more.

"Yer killin' me here," he growled. "Answer _now _or I'm going to find out my answer the fun and easy way."

His smile was wider and sharper, more the confident, cocky grin she was used to. There was her Renji, the one she knew so well. But there was something distinctly predatory in his look, a gleam in his eye like a hungry tiger that's sighted a rabbit in the grass and it knows the bunny can't outrun it.

"What's that?" she asked, stalling for time while she tried to figure out a way out of the situation she'd found herself in.

A half a second ago, she had been the one with all of the advantages, and now she was in over her head and sinking fast. What did he mean fun and easy way? He'd get no answers unless she gave them to him!

"Don't dodge the subject, ya got three more seconds."

His smile was wider, sharper.

"I didn't know there was a time limit."

"Two."

"You're not being fair, how can I even-"

"One."

"You pig-headed-"

The rest of what she might have said was cut off by the feel of his lips claiming hers. It was no chaste little peck either. Renji kissed just the same way he fought; powerful, aggressive and skillful. His lips drank from hers like a man dying of thirst in the desert stumbling across an oasis. But there was also a soft quality to it that made the kiss less of a claiming and more of an offering, a slow, lingering and gentle pressure on her mouth that sought and beguiled rather than forced. It spoke without words, saying 'you are precious, beloved and cherished, I want to share this with you.' Reiatsu, warm and deep, flared around her in a tempestuous whirlwind with the two of them at its center. Her own spiritual force flowed out of her to meet it, mingle and combine with it, tasting and testing its energies. Before she'd even thought about it Rukia had surrendered herself to the powerful magic of their two souls meeting with no secrets between them, her eyes closed of thier own accord as she lost herself in the feeling of bliss and completeness. The world fell away and everything that had gone before dissolved into senseless noise that was drowned out by the steady beats of thier hearts. It felt like an eternity later when the kiss was slowly, lingeringly disengaged. Her eyes drifted lazily open, as if she were reluctantly coming awake from a pleasant dream. The first thing she saw was his face gazing back at her in naked adoration and wonder, his warm puppy-brown eyes looking deep into hers.

Slowly, a surprisingly shy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

"I'm taking that as a yes," he informed her solemnly.

Rukia opened her mouth to fire back a retort that would set him back in his place but the kiss he'd given her had apparently scrambled all of her circuits for she came up with nothing. She just huffed at him instead. A wide, pleased, smug smile stretched across his face and Rukia thought about saying something to wipe it off his face but was stopped by the next kiss he gave her.

It was even gentler than the first. It did not demand, it beguiled, coaxing her from passive recipient to active participant by moving away slightly, forcing her to pursue after him if she wanted the kiss to continue. She sought after his warmth, pressing her mouth to his, curling her fingers in the front of his shihakusho. She then got the brilliant idea, somehow sinking through the haze of passion, of making him hold still. She untangled her left hand from the front of his robe and slid it up over his chest and around his neck, twining the fingers of her hand in his thick blood-red hair and holding her head in place. She felt him smile against her lips as she took greater control of the kiss. He seemed quite content to let her have it, lingering over the taste of her in a savoring manner, as if determined to enjoy every last second of the kiss the way a connoisseur of fine wine might savor an unexpected treasure trove of fine centuries old merlot. She had to come up for air sadly and when she broke the kiss she found that breathing was a little more difficult than it had been.

"That's not fair," she said weakly.

He had _cheated_. He was supposed to wait until _she _decided to give him an answer not just stroll up and plunder the answers from her mouth and body.

"Fairs are for tourists," was his easy reply.

He pulled her to him, cradling her in his arms, her back against his chest, her head resting somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder. He poked up the fire with one hand, and tucked one of the mantles around them both. She supposed she should be struggling to gain the upper hand but she felt so peaceful and relaxed, and by the soft, slow pressure of his own reiatsu, like a sigh of contentment all around her as he held her, so did he. She felt like she'd been out wandering, walking through strange lands filled with things she didn't understand, and had at last arrived at her home and sank into her own bed with a feeling of relief and contentment at being in the place where she belonged.

Outside the storm still howled, but they were safe from its anger, the fire was warm and they were alone together with no-one to bother them or chide them for impropriety.

"I love you Rukia," he said into the silence.

She sighed with happy contentment and snuggled closer into his embrace, smiling drowsily as she closed her eyes. That was nice to hear. She liked hearing that, he could say it a few dozen more times, more if he wanted to.

"Hey..." he said after a long pause, poking at her.

"Hm?" she questioned lazily, not even cracking an eyelid, basking in the warmth and comfort of his arms after so long a time without it the same way that a reptile would soak in the sun on a warm rock.

"Isn't there something you want to say to me?" he pressed.

She just smiled in his arms. He could damned well work for it.

"Hey, Rukia," he said poking her again. "Aren't you going to say you love me back, I told you how I felt..."

"It took you fifty years to do it," she replied. "Ask me in another fifty years and I'll tell you."

"You're not going to hold a grudge about that are you? I told you I had my reasons. C'mon, don't be mad, that's not fair."

"Fairs are for tourists," she said with a wide grin that he couldn't see, pressed up against his chest as she was. She looked up at him and he down at her. She smiled widely at him even as he frowned.

"Brat," he informed her, leaning in to kiss her again.

She repositioned herself to a more comfortable position, cradled properly in his arms. Rukia wasn't the sort to go looking for a big, strong man to protect her, but if she was going to have one anyway there was no point in not making the most of it. She tilted her lips up to receive his kiss. She'd be making sure that there were plenty more of _those _coming, he had a lot of lost time and misunderstandings to make up to her after all, he could start right now. He was _hers_, utterly and completely, and if she tormented him a bit with that fact, well, he deserved it. Rukia smiled letting him lean in to capture her lips again with a sigh of contentedness.

"You love me anyway," she replied securely.

**The End**


End file.
